Someday
by thoughts-of-joy-dreams-of-love
Summary: "The time before daily chores, when her life had been charmed, seemed very distant and unreal, like a daydream dreamed in the hazy heat of summer. It was a time that spanned only the first five years of her life, before her father had washed up from the river." A oneshot about Snow White's life pre-movie.


**For some reason I felt compelled to do a Snow White oneshot. I feel like she totally doesn't get enough credit for a fourteen year old girl who, except for the panicked run through the forest, was pretty level-headed and optimistic considering her stepmother was trying to assassinate her. Snow White is an adorable and feminine BAMF and she's super underrated, so I guess I wanted to give her some appreciation.**

**I don't own Snow White, but I think we all already knew that.**

**.**

Snow White knew she had once had a charmed life. She had had Father, who had loved her dearly and always gave her sheeny ribbons for her hair and held her in his lap whenever she wished. He read her fables to teach her lessons about life, "_for when you're a big girl",_ even though she ran her fingers over the rich pictures more often than she listened. He tolerated her when she begged to go with him to speeches and Important King Things, and kindly explained that she was just too little. And even on days when he was busy in conferences all day and came out pallid and with all the mysterious worries Snow White didn't understand gathering in swollen bags beneath his eyes, he managed to come tuck her in for bed.

When she was older, she wondered if he was trying to make up the lack of a mother. Mother had died soon after Snow was born, but she had never felt any particular pain at her absence. Father was enough for her, and she wasn't really sure what she could be missing.

It seemed to her that he had been the best father ever, although lying on her cot at night she wondered fleetingly whether or not death had a way of making things seem sweeter. But there was no real point in wondering those things, so even though she wondered about a lot, she didn't wonder too long about that.

At any rate, it wouldn't do much good to try and remember whether Father had really been the best father ever. The time before daily chores, when her life had been charmed, seemed very distant and unreal, like a daydream dreamed in the hazy heat of summer. It was a time that spanned only the first five years of her life, before her father had washed up from the river.

Father's death was a period that was fragmentary and unclear in her mind. Men and women in dark fabrics. Sometimes with crowns on their heads. Sometimes with foreign accents on their tongues. There were fingers with winking opal rings and throats with smiling diamond collars and hands with expensive creams and royal lips with_ "Sorry, we are so sorry for your loss, your Highness,"_

There was the wire-hanger grip of _her_ nails on Snow White's shoulders."_Yes...the king and I were only married for two months before his_ untimely_ death...poor man, it's been so painful...yes, the kingdom is now mine and so is this_ _poor little _dear_, the_ _princess..."_

Snow had been mostly left alone to wonder around the castle in the days following the king's death. She had been confused. She hadn't understood why she couldn't see Father anymore, but she managed a bewildered five-year-old acceptance. Every room in the castle was dark and heavy, and everyone moved like dazed specters. They gave Snow White pitying, sodden smiles whenever they saw her, but they couldn't seem to say anything.

Snow White could remember tall men in uniforms standing around, drinking glasses of dark liquid and conversing in melancholy tones. They all had ashy indigo curls beneath their eyes and steely stubble on their cheeks. Some of them she recognized as her father's advisers. At times they gave her a pat on the head or two, but for the most part they were caught up in a fog of whispers: _"'Awful that he's dead … can't imagine what made him … He left the Queen full control of the kingdom … God, I can't think why he married her … the public doesn't like her, and she doesn't like_ us…_ His Highness worked so hard to make his kingdom strong, but with_ her in_ control ... she'll get rid of us, and we won't be able to carry on His Highness's vision at all … Power-hungry, she is … it almost makes you wonder if she ..."_

And the servants whispered, too, their eyes rimmed pink and their voices hurried_. "It's awful, it is … He was a good man to us, and now he's gone and drowned 'imself in the river … I don't understand why … Well, he_ was_ never quite the same after his dear wife passed … Yes, but he wasn't the type, he wouldn' leave that sweet, pretty little daughter of his; he loved her so …_ I saw_ the king just before he jumped, I did, an' he looked so_ strange,_ like under a witch's spell, an enchantment … Don't be_ silly, _Magda ..."_

But their voices shut off as soon as they noticed Snow listening, pale and silent and not understanding at all.

The unfamiliar dignitaries, the former advisers, and the somber gossip all disappeared soon after her father's coffin descended into the ground. She remembered standing hesitantly in the doorway of the Queen's bedroom the night after the funeral, watching her as she sat in her chair and gazed into the flames that writhed in the fireplace. Her face looked like it was built of bone china. Beautiful and aristocratic, but not very welcoming. All the same...she was the woman Father had chosen to marry, even if had only lasted two months. She was Snow White's stepmother. _Mother. _Snow White had always been just fine without her own mother. But then she wondered what it would be like to have one. It could be alright, maybe.

She'd quietly attempted to slip into her stepmother's lap, and promptly found herself shoved to the floor.

"Snow White," the Queen said, as if coming around to a decision she'd been turning over in her head. "You're going to sleep in the servants' quarters from now on."

"Why...why, Moth-?"

"Don't call me 'Mother'," Her crimson, razor-slit lips thinned. She sounded almost bored. "Girl, from this day forward, you are a scullery maid. Your father _dreadfully_ spoiled you while he alive. As I am forced to care for you now, you must pay back this favor with your work. Oh, don't look so shocked, you stupid thing. You think you're too delicate, too precious to work? I could easily cast you out into the woods, and then what would happen to you? Your heart would be ripped from your ribs by some beast, surely. I'm sure you don't want that. If you're at all grateful for what I have decided to give you, you'll do as I say."

And that, for the next nine years, was that.

**.**

Things began to change at fourteen, as they are wont to do around that age.

Previously, she had felt at least content with her life in the castle. Doing the chores was her duty, and the only thing she'd ever truly known besides. But lately, she felt as if she were suspended in a state of vague unease, like many things ought to be happening that weren't. An undirected disquiet filled her bones, and she felt as if a change ought to be happening to go along with the changes greeting her fourteen-year old body, but there was...nothing. She didn't know what it was she wanted, but the same-ness of her days gave her a restless, itchy feeling.

She found herself more and more preoccupied with things she hadn't thought about before. Her appearance, for instance. Her stepmother had always made it clear that she was rather plain - _"Snow White, you must wear _these_ clothes now and keep your hair cut short. There's no need to look nice as a scullery maid, and it will only make you look silly, anyway. People will just look at you and say 'Poor girl, she's trying so hard to look pretty when she just cannot.' It's best to have plain clothes, my girl...to match the rest of you."_

So she had, up until recently, given very little thought to beauty. There was no time for that. But when royals from neighboring kingdoms came to visit, they sometimes brought their daughters, and Snow White found herself staring at the silken chiffon skirts, the elaborate jewels, and the spilling loops of artfully crafted hairstyles. She wished she could look like that, just for a day – _to be pretty._ But she just looked down at the floor and continued sweeping, because bad things would happen if the Queen's guests happened to notice her. The Queen never liked it when people noticed her.

One night before going to bed, she had peered at her reflection in the wishing well, because servants didn't get mirrors. She tried to replicate some of the elegant hairstyles she'd seen just using her hands, but it was no use – her hair was simply too short. Sighing petulantly, she had tilted her head and really looked at herself.

She had never looked so pretty as in that moment, with her marmoreal, snow-dusted complexion and air of youthful fragility. Her brown irises brought to mind lacquered apple pips, her hair seemed to be spun out of the nighttime itself, and her lips looked like two blood brush strokes, lovingly painted on.

Snow White had stared at herself. Was she actually..._beautiful_? It was a thought so startling she almost gasped aloud. She wondered if it was foolish and vain to care so much, but she couldn't stop herself from looking into the perfect mirror of the well, imagining that her stepmother might be wrong about her.

But then - no - she heard the voice of the Queen in her ears, and she remembered - _you are not pretty you are not a thing of beauty you are not worth a glance, if you were I wouldn't have to hide you away like this, Snow White, but as it stands nobody wants to look at something so pathetic and why on earth should I make them?_

Beauty, Snow understood, was just too much to wish for when it came to someone like her.

She turned away from the wishing well, biting her lip. Her, beautiful? It was just a trick of the light, nothing more.

**.**

The Queen had Snow sleep on a cot in the kitchen, which was just far enough from the other servant girls' sleeping quarters that it made her feel isolated, but close enough that she could hear their whispers and know she was not a part of it. She wanted to go join them, most of the time. And lately she felt that she deserved to do so - even if someone was not beautiful, like her, she thought that was a poor reason to be kept alone.

She was starting to think that she could be worth something even if she _wasn't_ fair, but it was a scary thought, one that she both entertained and held at arm's length. Her stepmother would not agree with her, she knew that, and there were nine year's of the Queen's barbed insults in her system. No, it was best not to dwell too much on what should be. Snow had to endure, she had to be as happy in her life as she could be, because that was the way you kept on.

One night she was lying on her cot, watching a decidedly unpleasant hundred-legged insect skitter across the floor. She made no move to kill it, though. She had sworn off being mean to anything a year ago, after the Queen had slapped her across the face, leaving a bruise on the same cheek Father had always kissed. Snow had cried her eyes out in her room and stomped on a spider crawling across the floor, when it suddenly occurred to her that the spider was only trying to survive, just like her, and she had, for no reason at all, snipped its life short in the stamp of a shoe. Then she cried more. She didn't want to be anything like stepmother, so she always tried to be polite to all animals and people, although it wasn't easy all the time.

She was distracted from the bug's path when one of the servant girl's voices stood out clearer among the rest. The others had quieted down, all wanting to hear whatever she had to say.

"Tell us what happened, Adelais, tell us!"

"Well...you know how Edmund, the stablehand, has been hanging around me lately? I'll be preparing supper and he'll just stand in the doorway, a little shy, and try to make conversation."

There was a flutter of giggles. "Go on!"

"Today, he asked me if I wanted to go see the horses, if I could spare a moment," Adelais said, her voice lowered in conspiracy. It was clear she was enjoying being the center of attention. "And I really couldn't, but he looked so nice, and he sort of stuttered as he asked, so I said yes anyway. Then he took me down to the stables and let me pet the Queen's favorite horse, and we were all by ourselves, just talking, and as we talked he moved closer to me, and then..." She trailed off, for peak dramatic effect.

"Adelais, just tell us what _happened_!" The others whined.

"Alright, alright!" She paused for a moment, and then said, very soft, "Edmund kissed me."

The other girls let out dreamy sighs. Snow felt a pang, that had something to do with the fact that she could not go and join in on these exchanges even though they were not so far away, but it had to do with the story the girl had told as well. She felt terribly left out, not only from these girlhood friendships, but from relationships with boys as well. The male and female servants didn't often come in contact with each other in general, since they did such different tasks, but Snow White, especially,was kept out of the way of boys her own age. She was no stranger to _men _\- sometimes when she was busy with her chores one or two would loiter around and leer at her; their eyes meandering hungrily down the dip of her collarbone and the moon-pale flesh of her cheek. For the most part, she stoically ignored them. Only twice had she ever been touched by them - a work-roughened hand had gripped her wrist or tried to cup her chin, and both times she had jerked back and glared at them until they backed down, too angry - and, yes, scared as well - to conjure up the words she wanted to say, that she should not be treated like this, that she was a girl and they were adults, that she would _not _let them take her down.

She did not know what it would feel like for a man who was less than twice her age to look at her not with hunger, but with a deeper sort of longing and a lightning-struck wonder. To have boy-hands that were soft and a little shaky with nerves brushing against her face, to fall in love like gulping down a warm drink.

A sort of aching curiosity pooled throughout Snow. Someday - maybe - she could have all those things. She remembered the fables her drowned dead father had read her, and the princes who fell so intensely in love with the princesses, and she remembered who she was - that she was a princess. It didn't matter that she cleaned day in and day out, or that she was locked away in the walls of the castle, Snow White was a princess. And as long she hoped and dreamed and was kind, she would endure for as long as she needed to.

Freedom would come to her one day.

And maybe a prince, too.

**.**

**Thanks for reading, and it would really make my day if you would leave a review along _with _your favorite!**

** I might do a oneshot for some of the other princesses, but I don't know. **¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


End file.
